F 



OLD SOUTH PRIZE ESSAYS. 



tSp 



I. 




The Policy of the early Colonists of 

Massachusetts toward Quakers 

and Others whom they 

regarded as Intruders. 



1881. 



BY HENRY L. SOUTHWICK. 






I 



BOSTON : 

OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE. 

1885. 




Glass f { *=> J 

72. 




I. 



The Policy of the early Colonists of 

Massachusetts toward Quakers 

and Others whom they 

regarded as Intruders. 



1881. 



OLD SOUTH PRIZE ESSAYS. 



I. 



The Policy of the early Colonists of 

Massachusetts toward Ouakers 

and Others whom they 

regarded as Intruders. 



1881. 



BY HENRY L. SOUTHWICK. 



BOSTON: 

OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE. 

1885. 






BEACON PRESS: THOMAS TODD, PRINTER, 

i Somerset Street, Boston. 



9 



r 






The Old South Prize Essays. 



The Old South Prizes for essays on subjects in Amer- 
ican History were first offered in 1881. The purpose 
and conditions of the prizes may best be stated in the 
language of the circular announcing them, as follows : 

In order to encourage the growing interest in American 
history, the undersigned are authorized to offer prizes for the 
best essays on the subjects named below, the competition 
being open to all who have graduated from the Boston High 
Schools (including the Latin Schools) in 1879, 1880, and 1881. 

Forty dollars will be awarded for the best essay on each 
of. the subjects named below, and twenty-five dollars for the 
second best — making in all four prizes. Competitors may 
write on both subjects, if they wish, but no one can receive 
more than one prize. 

The essays must be sent between October 1 and December 
1, 188 1, to Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells, 155 Boylston Street. 
It is recommended that they should be written on quarto 
letter-paper, and that no essay should exceed in length fifteen 
pages of the North American Review. Each essay must bear 
an assumed name, and must be accompanied by a sealed 
letter having the assumed name outside and the real name 
of the writer within, together with the date of graduation and 
the name of the High School at which the pupil graduated. 

The judges will give some weight to the literary merit 
of the essays, but will chiefly consider the amount of historical 
knowledge and thought displayed. They will reserve the 



vi The Old South Prize Essays. 

right to withhold any or all of the prizes in case essays of 
sufficient merit are not offered. 

SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS. 

I. What was the policy of the early colonists of Massa- 
chusetts toward Quakers and others whom they regarded as 
intruders ? Was this policy in any respect objectionable, and, 
if so, what excuses can be offered for it ? 

II. Why did the American colonies separate from the 
mother country? Did the early settlers look forward to any 
such separation, and, if not, how and when did the wish for 
it grow up ? What was the difference between the form of 
government which they finally adopted and that under which 
they had before been living ? 

Mrs. Augustus Hem en way, 
Edwin P. Seaver, 
Miss Lucretia Crocker, 
Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells, 

Committee. 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 
Miss C. Alice Baker, 

Judges. 

The essays received in 1881 were all on the first 
subject named. The number received was perhaps smaller 
than was expected, — the numbers have largely increased 
in the subsequent years, — but this fact was more than 
counterbalanced by the unexpected merit of the essays. 
Their average execution was very creditable, and those 
higher on the list exhibited an amount of study and 
thought far beyond what was looked for. 

The first prize was awarded to Henry L. Southwick, a 
graduate of the Dorchester High School in 1880, the sec- 
ond prize to Leo R. Lewis, a graduate of the English 
High School in 1879, and the tnird t0 Clift Rogers 
Clapp, a graduate of the Latin School in 1880. The 



The Old South Prize Essays. vii 

third prize was not in the original offer, but was granted 
because of the unexpected concentration of all the essays 
upon a single subject. 

The judges expressed the opinion in 1881 that several 
of the essays submitted in that year well deserved publi- 
cation ; and the same is true of many of the essays sub- 
mitted in subsequent years. It is intended to follow the 
publication of Mr. Southwick's essay, which is here pre- 
sented, by the publication of some and perhaps all of the 
later first-prize essays. This publication is not simply on 
account of the intrinsic value of the essays, although, while 
that indulgence is asked which is due to the youth of the 
writers, it is felt that some of them have a high intrinsic 
value. It is desired to furnish the competitors for the 
prizes in subsequent years with a certain standard or 
criterion, by showing them what their predecessors have 
done ; and it is desired to make the general public better 
acquainted with the interest of the young people in his- 
torical and political studies, and with their excellent accom- 
plishments. 

The subjects assigned for the essays in 1882, 1883, 
and 1884 were as follows. The names of the prize essay- 
ists of each year are printed in connection : — 

1882. 

I. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys; or the 
Early History of the New Hampshire Grants, afterwards called 
Vermont. 

II. The Town Meeting in the Old South Meeting House on 
July 22d and 28th, 1774. 

I. First prize : Miss Bertha Goodale, Girls' Latin School, 
1882. Second prize: Edward B. Bayley, English High 
School, 1882. II. Second prize: Miss Eleanor F. Lang, 
Girls' High School, 1881. 



viii The Old South Prize Essays. 

1883. 

I. The right and wrong of the policy of the United 
States towards the North American Indians. 

II. What were the defects of the " Articles of Confedera- 
tion " between the American States, and why was the " Constitu- 
tion of the United States" substituted? 

I. First prize : Shattuck Osgood Hartwell, Boston 
Latin School, 1883. Second prize : Miss Bertha Goodale, 
Girls' Latin School, 1882. II. First prize : Miss Louisa 
E. Humphrey, Girls' High School, 1883. Second prize: 
Miss Harriet P. Blancher, Girls' High School, 1882. 

1884. 

I. Why did the Pilgrim Fathers come to New England ? 

II. The struggle to maintain the Massachusetts Charter, 
to its final loss in 1684. Discuss the relation of the struggle 
to the subsequent struggle of the Colonies for Independence. 

I. First prize : Franklin E. E. Hamilton, Boston Latin 
School, 1883. Second prize : Shattuck Osgood Hartwell, 
Boston Latin School, 1883. II. Second prize : Benjamin 
C. Lane, English High School, 1883. 

Old South Meeting House, 
Boston, April, 1885. 



THE POLICY OF THE EARLY COLONISTS OF MASSA- 
CHUSETTS TOWARD QUAKERS AND OTHERS 
WHOM THEY REGARDED AS INTRUDERS. 



By Henry L. Southwick. 



The story of the rise of the Puritans, of the training and 
development of that mental and moral phenomenon, the Puri- 
tan character, for its peculiar destiny, has been narrated ably 
and copiously. The history of that portion of the sect which 
remained in England, and followed the standard of Cromwell 
from victory to victory, hurled Charles from his throne, and 
buried crown and miter under the foundations of the Com- 
monwealth, and of that other portion who left their peace- 
ful, smiling, merry England for a wild and inauspicious shore, 
crossed the ocean, fought their way 

" Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways, 
Where beasts with man divided empire claim, 
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim," 

and laid the foundation of a commonwealth still broader, 
grander, and more enduring, — these things are "familiar as a 
household word." 

The settlement of New England was almost wholly due to 
the bitter antagonism between the Protestant Dissenters and 
the Church of England. In Plymouth it took the form of 
separation, a total severance from the Episcopal church, while 
in Massachusetts Bay it aimed at the establishment of a the- 
ocracy, a sort of " renovated Israel," with the Old and New 
Testaments as statute-book and constituents. The famous 
words of Daniel Webster strike the key-note to the situation : 
" Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our 
fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the 



2 Policy of the Massachusetts Colonists 

Christian religion ; they journeyed in its light and labored in 
its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the 
elements of their society, and to infuse its influence through 
all their institutions, civil, political, and literary." And let us 
not misconceive the aims and purposes of the founders. The 
attempts to palliate their faults, to apologize for the harshness 
of their spirit and the cruelty of their dealings, fail to get at 
the root of the matter. As Dr. Ellis says, " On no subject 
dealt with among us has there been such an amount of crude, 
sentimental, and wasteful rhetoric, or so much weak and vain 
pleading, as on this." . Could our fathers but listen to what 
has been offered in their behalf, if their merriment were not 
overmastered by indignation at being so grossly misrepre- 
sented, how they would laugh over the delusions of their 
progeny, much as the chiseled skulls on antique grave-stones 
are said to grin at their own epitaphs. Their assailants and 
defenders alike fall into the common fallacy of attributing to 
the founders the purpose of seeking to establish an asylum 
for persecuted consciences. Poets sing of it, orators dilate 
upon it, and school-books inculcate it. But the fact is that, of 
all the popular notions respecting the early Puritans, none 
are less warranted by history than that which credits them 
with a love or regard for religious liberty. They never in- 
tended to permit freedom of conscience in their midst. They 
were not sufficiently advanced for it. They abhorred the 
very name. To them it was the synonym for the deadliest 
of heresies, for moral looseness, and for social anarchy. They 
had seen its tendency in England, and they dreaded its results. 
They could not and would not tolerate it. 

Ignorance on this important matter seems to be widespread 
and almost universal. Even the learned Dr. Palfrey shares 
the popular fallacy, when he says: "As a corporation, the 
company had obtained a large American territory, on which 
it designed to place a colony which should be a refuge for 
civil and religious freedom." But, if we would obtain a cor- 
rect insight into the real aims and purposes of the founders, 
we must turn to the writings of the early settlers themselves. 



Toward Quakers and Other Dissenters. 3 

Winthrop speaks of " the work we have in hand, to seek out 
a place of cohabitation and consortship, under a due form of 
government, both civil and ecclesiastical." Here is truly a 
wide discrepancy. We see at once that the difference be- 
tween Dr. Palfrey's "refuge for civil and religious freedom," 
and the Governor's " place of cohabitation and consortship, 
under a due form of government, both civil and ecclesiasti- 
cal," is immeasurable. In the same strain with Winthrop, 
Gov. Hutchinson says: "It was one great design of the first 
planters of the Massachusetts Colony to obtain for themselves 
and their posterity the liberty of worshiping God in such man- 
ner as appeared to them to be most agreeable to the sacred 
Scriptures." 

These extracts, which are fair samples of the spirit of the 
early planters, seem to establish, beyond challenge or cavil, the 
assertion of Mr. Quincy, that " they came here not to acquire 
liberty for all sorts of consciences, but to vindicate and main- 
tain the liberty of their own." A truly representative Puritan 
was Gov. Dudley, one of the most eminent of the settlers of 
New England. He was a man of sound judgment, inflexible 
integrity, and exemplary piety. How strongly he was imbued 
with the intolerance of his age will appear from his reply to an 
inquiry from Holland as to whether " those that differed from 
you in opinion, yet holding the same foundation in religion, 
might be permitted to live among you." " God forbid," said 
he, " our love to the truth should be grown so cold that we 
should tolerate errors." After his death these lines were 
found in his pocket : 

"Let men of God in courts and churches watch 
O'er such as do a toleration hatch, 
Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice 
To poison all with heresy and vice." 

The hard, intolerant, unchristian theology of the Puritans 
has justly met with unsparing condemnation, while their 
morose and grotesque manners, their canting phrases and 
their very atmosphere, " black with sermons," are made the 
subject of stinging jests and much flippant ridicule. But the 



4 Policy of the Massachusetts Colonists 

charge of hypocrisy, so often hurled at them, seems to have 
little, if any, foundation in fact, except, perhaps, the duplicity 
of the colony's relations toward the mother country. Mars- 
ten says : " Their inconsistencies were almost equal to their 
virtues. The disciples of liberty, they soon confined its bless- 
ings to themselves. The loud champions of the freedom of 
the conscience, they allowed of no freedom which interfered 
with their narrow views." Now I have carefully and dili- 
gently sought the records for evidence that the Puritans of 
Old or New England ever advocated or sued for religious 
freedom. I have found none. True, remonstrances were 
frequent and petitions numerous, but they were invariably 
remonstrances against some abuse of the ecclesiastical regime, 
petitions for some modification of the ritual or church gov- 
ernment. As Col. Higginson so pertinently observes : " In 
England they did not wish to be tolerated for a day as sec- 
taries, for they claimed to have authority as the one true 
church. They objected to the Church of England, not that 
it persecuted, but that its persecution was wrongly aimed." 
They were consistent to their consciences, narrow and per- 
verted though those consciences were. Long before James I 
had carried out his threat to " harry them out of the land," 
they had adopted opinions which they fully believed they 
ought to profess, a mode of public worship which they fully 
believed they ought to observe ; they reposed in the security 
of conservatism ; they claimed the sword of the magistrate to 
punish the schismatic and the heretic ; they proposed to 
regulate their commonwealth by the strictest legislation of 
the Bible — the whole Bible, but especially the Old Testa- 
ment. We look in vain through the darkness of Puritan 
Judaism for any gleams of that light of Nazareth which they 
professed to adore. They preached, not the fatherhood, but 
the wrath of God. They were absurdly credulous, completely 
swaddled in the " grave clothes of creed and custom," and, in 
their supreme arrogance, fancied they were "God's elect." 
But we must give them the credit of their work. We must 
look at the facts, not with our prejudices, but with our eyes. 



Tozvard Quakers and Other Dissenters. 5 

The Puritans brought to bear a coolness of judgment and 
an immutability of purpose which seem inconsistent with 
their religious zeal. Bancroft says of them: "The wildest 
theories of the human reason were reduced to practice by a 
community so humble that no statesman condescended to 
notice it." To do them justice, we must review their pur- 
poses and actions by the light, or, if you please, the darkness, 
of their own beliefs and consciences. They were men of 
intelligence and wisdom for their age. Their purposes were 
pure and lofty. They " scorned delights, and lived laborious 
days." They were attempting a great enterprise in the midst 
of dangers and privations and all the somber influences which 
stamped indelibly upon the Puritan character all that it had 
of gloom and repulsion. " Their fundamental error," Judge 
Story says, " was their theory of the necessity of a union 
between church and state." This attempt to construct a 
state from a church proved a conspicuous failure. 

The colonists wished to have it distinctly understood that 
" New England was a religious plantation, not a plantation 
for trade." Their great misgiving was that the wickedness 
or waywardness of any strangers or interlopers who might 
steal in among them would imperil the success of their 
cherished undertaking. The earlier settlements had been 
filled with a lawless multitude. They now proposed to admit 
only the " favored of heaven " to form a " peculiar govern- 
ment " and to colonize " the best." In their determination to 
keep out all unwelcome persons, they took refuge behind 
the following clause of their charter, the only provision in 
the entire instrument which could, by the most extreme 
distortion of its meaning, even technically justify their 
exclusive policy : " That it shall be lawful for the chief com- 
manders and officers of the said Companie for the tyme being 
for their special defence and safety to encounter, repulse, 
repell and resist by force of arms all such person or per- 
sons, as shall at any time hereafter attempt or enterprise the 
destruction, invasion, detriment, or annoyance of said planta- 
tion or inhabitants, and to take and surprise by all ways and 



6 Policy of the Massachusetts Colonists 

means whatsoever, all and every such person and persons, 
with their ships, armour, munition, and other goods,as shall 
in hostile manner invade or attempt the defeating of the said 
plantation, or the hurt of the said company and inhabitants." 
To disclose what there is in this very clear and significant pro- 
vision of a colonization and trading charter to justify the his- 
torian, Henry Cabot Lodge, and that eminent authority, Dr. 
Ellis, in asserting that it endowed the colonists with all the 
exclusive privileges of householders, and with full authority to 
exclude all unwelcome persons, and to drive them away even 
by legislation of excessive cruelty, thus vindicating the in- 
iquitous proceedings toward Baptists and Quakers, requires 
a well developed faculty of extracting undreamed-of meanings 
from legal phraseology. The clause is clearly a reference to 
hostile invasion, and admits of no other interpretation, without 
grossly perverting and distorting its significance. It simply 
empowers "the chief commanders and officers" to " resist, by 
force of arms," those who may " in hostile manner invade " 
their territory. The word " annoyance," used in this connec- 
tion, is merely a military term. 

It was doubtless intended that the charter should be ad- 
ministered in Old and not New England. Had it been but 
faintly suspected that their colonization and trading charter 
would have been made the cloak for establishing a Puritan 
theocracy, the instrument would never have received the royal 
seal. The planters were granted permission to make their 
own laws, but " so as such lawes and ordinances be not con- 
trary or repugnant to the laws and statutes of this our realme 
of England." Now, it must be frankly admitted that their 
government and its administration were such as the statutes 
and common law of England did not warrant. While they 
stretched the provisions of their charter, they grossly violated 
its spirit. Governor Winthrop says : " Let the patent be 
perused, and there it will be found that the incorporation is 
made to certain persons by name, and unto such as they shall 
associate to themselves. None other can claim privilege with 
them but by free consent." Now, a careful perusal of the 



Toward Quakers and OtJicr Dissenters. 7 

patent will find therein neither authority, nor the shadow of 
authority, for Governor Winthrop's interpretation. That 
" the incorporation is made to certain persons by name," is a 
logical and necessary inference, for it is difficult to conceive 
how else it could have been granted. It is a very significant 
fact that, when the second charter, granted by William III, 
received the royal seal, the colonists were expressly forbidden 
to expel unwelcome persons from their jurisdiction. 

Starting from the hypothesis that they were members of a 
joint stock company, and possessed all the rights of proprie- 
tors, the fathers, urging the necessity of protecting their own 
property, their own franchise, their own great design, decided 
to restrict the right of franchise to church-members alone, to 
those whom they supposed to be in full sympathy with the 
religious purpose of the colony, which they believed would 
alone insure its success. This, it will be conceded, was 
plainly "repugnant" to the laws of England. As it might 
be readily supposed, the result was all manner of mischief. 
Their scheme, while it shut out many of their best citizens, 
afforded no adequate protection against the worst. And yet, 
in that age of universal intolerance, even the New England 
Puritans, with all their narrowness and bigotry, seem, by 
contrast, liberal, and even indulgent, when we consider that 
France and England were gasping under the despotism of 
intolerance, that Holland and Germany were torn asunder by 
the implacable wars of religion, while the demons of the 
Inquisition held bloody saturnalia in Spain. 

That the Puritans, in choosing their course of action, 
made a most grievous mistake, is a truism which requires no 
demonstration. They were now at liberty to make their own 
choice, and to carry their principles into full effect. They 
deliberately, with their eyes wide open, chose the path of 
intolerance, and their fault is aggravated by the reflection 
that they themselves were the living witnesses of the utter 
folly of the experiment. Untaught by experience, they re- 
peated in America the self-same crimes from which their 
fathers had suffered so much in England, and thus justified 



8 Policy of the Massachusetts Colonists 

the men who had wronged them. In the language of Macau- 
lay : " They should have learned, if from nothing else, from 
their own discontents, from their own struggles, from their 
own victory, from the fall of that proud hierarchy by which 
they had been so heavily oppressed, that it was not in the 
power of the civil magistrate to drill the minds of men in con- 
formity with his own system of theology." But the stand of 
the founders had been taken, and they held to it with consist- 
ent pertinacity. 

The first troublers of the Puritan Israel were John and 
Samuel Brown, who were sent back to England in 1629, for 
adhering to Episcopal forms. They were reputed "sincere 
in their affection for the good of the plantation," but, to the 
eyes of the colonists, the service of the Church of England 
was as great a crime as the conventicles of Brownists and 
Anabaptists had ever been to the eyes of the Church itself, 
in the days of Whitgift and Barlow. Nor was their enmity 
without real foundation. The Episcopalians had waged 
against their party a war of extermination. They could not 
imperil the safety of the colony by a breach of its unity. 
Having settled here to maintain and perpetuate Puritan Chris- 
tianity, and made the greatest sacrifices so to situate them- 
selves, they did not propose to have the hierarchy, whose per- 
secutions had driven them into exile, intrude into the forests 
of Massachusetts. 

Their next trial was the advent of Roger Williams, the 
apostle of "soul liberty," "young, godly, and zealous, having 
precious gifts." His great and unchanged tenet was the 
sanctity of the conscience, a doctrine especially abhorrent 
to the Puritan fathers. He held that " the magistrates 
should restrain crimes, but not control opinions." Compul- 
sory church attendance he regarded as a violation of the 
natural rights of man, and the church-membership limitation 
met with his stern and unequivocal disapproval. In his 
Bloody Tenet he says : " Not only did the law of calling 
to magistracy shut out natural and unregenerate men, though 
excellently fitted for civil office, but it also shut out the best 



Toward Quakers and Other Dissenters. 9 

and ablest servants of God, except they be entered into the 
church estate." He denied in toto the notion of the church's 
concern in civil affairs, which was the foundation of New 
England's polity. But his crowning and unpardonable heresy 
was when he attacked the right of the colonists to their land. 
The planters resolved to bear with him no longer. At the 
session of the General Court, held at Boston in September, 
1635, this order was passed: "Whereas, Mr. Roger Williams, 
one of the elders of the Church of Salem, hath broached and 
divulged divers new and dangerous opinions against the 
authority of the magistrates, and also writ letters of defama- 
tion, both of the magistrates and churches here, and that 
before any conviction, and yet maintaineth the same without 
retraction, it is therefore ordered that the said Mr. Williams 
shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six weeks now 
next ensuing." All the ministers, save one, approved the 
sentence. The church had driven from her fold one of her 
best and holiest children, but one who was nevertheless 
dangerous to the state. The historians generally agree that 
the banishment of Roger Williams was more a matter of 
policy than a cmestion of religious tolerance. In the lan- 
guage of Henry Cabot Lodge, " He (Roger Williams) denied 
the power of the magistrates to enforce the laws ; he struck 
at allegiance to the government ; he strove to encourage 
a policy which would still further inflame the King, and 
embitter their relations with England, and all this was done 
in a time of trial and extreme danger from abroad." The 
colonists were very reluctant to have Williams point out to 
them the wide differences between their practice under their 
charter, and the real meaning of the instrument. But they 
were nevertheless justified in treating him as an intruder. 

Hardly were they well rid of Roger Williams, when Mrs. 
Hutchinson appeared upon the scene. She was a woman 
of high and subtle intellect, deeply imbued with the con- 
troversial spirit of her age. She stood at the head of 
a constantly growing party, largely composed of individuals 
who had arrived after the civil government of the colony had 



10 Policy of the Massachusetts Colonists 

been established, and who, following out the doctrines of strict 
Calvinism with logical precision, maintained that salvation 
was the fruit of grace and not of works. The conservative 
party, which consisted of the original settlers, of the men 
who had founded the colony, and who were content with the 
established order of things, readily conceived how such 
a doctrine might be perverted by logical interpretation, and 
religious standing be made independent of moral character. 
She was supported in her rebellion against spiritual authority 
by Governor Vane, Rev. John Wheelwright, and a majority 
of the people of Boston, but Winthrop, Dudley, and nearly 
all the ministers were arrayed against her. The subject 
became one of supreme political importance. At the ensuing 
choice of magistrates the theological divisions played a prin- 
cipal part in the elections, and the triumph of the clergy was 
complete. Mrs. Hutchinson was summoned before the Gen- 
eral Court, denounced as " weakening the hands and hearts of 
the people against the ministers," as being "like Roger 
Williams and worse," and Massachusetts, true to her theo- 
cratic system, banished Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers, 
as she had banished Roger Williams. But while the case of 
Williams was perhaps chiefly political, in that of Mrs. Hutch- 
inson the religious element was predominant. Her attack 
upon the church, however, in a community where church and 
state were substantially one, was practically an assault upon 
the state itself. In defending the order of the court of 1637, 
to the effect that " none shall be allowed to inhabit here but 
by permission of the magistrates," and thus vindicating the 
expulsion of Antinomians, Winthrop says : " A commonwealth 
is a great family, and as such is not bound to entertain all 
comers, nor receive unwelcome strangers." 

If Roger Williams was the first individual to uphold the 
liberty of conscience, the Baptists were the first sect to 
publicly maintain its doctrines. I have before me, as I write, 
a quaint old volume of Baptist tracts, published in London in 
1644. In one of them, entitled Religions Peace, we find this 
typical paragraph : " And how much more ought Christians 



Toward Quakers and Other Dissenters. 1 1 

to tolerate Christians whereas the Turks do tolerate them. 
Shall we be less merciful than the Turks ? or shall we learn 
the Turks to persecute Christians ? It is not only unmerciful, 
but unnatural and abominable; yea, monstrous for one Chris- 
tian to vex and destroy another for difference and questions of 
religion." Like other advocates of this dangerous heresy, 
the Baptists could expect little indulgence from the Puritan 
colonists of Massachusetts. Indeed, as Hildreth so justly 
observes : " The horror of toleration is an inherent and essen- 
tial characteristic of every theocracy." The Baptists had 
been relentlessly persecuted in England, and the colonists, 
naturally imbibing the prejudices of the mother country, 
shaped their legislation in the same direction. Their dread 
and aversion to this sect arose, in part, it may be readily 
supposed, from confounding them with the Anabaptists, a 
Germa'n sect, whose extravagant opinions, and still more 
extravagant practices, had incurred universal odium in 
Europe. In 1644 a law was passed, inflicting banishment 
upon all such as, after due time and means of conviction, 
continued obstinate in opposing infant baptism. Among the 
victims of this enactment were Gorton and his six associates, 
who were banished, Clark and Crandall, who were fined, and 
Obadiah Holmes, who in 165 1 was whipped for heresy. Sev- 
eral of the Baptists, who in 1655 attempted to organize a 
church in Boston, were fined and banished for not attending 
the established worship. " The same conduct," says the 
astute Chalmers, " has been invariably pursued in all times 
and in every country ; the persecuted, when they acquire 
power, will always persecute ! " Wretched and deplorable as 
was the treatment of the Baptists, that the Puritans were not 
unanimous in their acts of oppression and intolerance will 
appear from the noble letter of Sir Richard Saltonstall, one 
of the original founders of the colony, written in 1652 to 
Wilson and Cotton, ministers of Boston : " It doth not a little 
grieve my spirit to hear what sad things are reported daily 
of your tyranny and persecution in New England, as that 
you fine, whip, and imprison men for their conscience. First, 



12 Policy of the Massachusetts Colonists 

you compel such to come into your assemblies as you know 
will not join you in your worship, and, when they show their 
dislike thereof, or witness against it, then you stir up your 
magistrates to punish them for such, as you conceive, their 
public affronts. I hope you do not assume to yourselves 
infallibility in judgment, when the most learned of the 
Apostles confesseth he knew but in part, and saw but darkly, 
as through a glass." 

The high-souled nobleman was prompt to recognize that, 
among the New England Puritans, the old principles of the 
independency had been completely subverted by the spirit of 
the establishment ; that the union of church and state was 
fast corrupting both. But now the attention of the colonists 
was absorbed by a new influx of heretics, before whom Rit- 
ualists, Antinomians, and Baptists faded into insignificance. 
The rise of the sect called Quakers was one of the results 
of that fermentation of public opinion in England which 
Cromwell allowed to go on unchecked. It was a consequence 
of the moral warfare against corruption and bigotry. The 
Quakers sought to effect a reform in manners, rather than in 
belief. They were irreproachable in their lives, meek and 
patient in suffering, never returned evil for evil, advocated 
the utmost simplicity, and were outspoken in their testimony 
against war, intemperance, slavery, and all immorality. They 
were men of whom Cromwell said : " I cannot win them by 
gifts, honors, offices, or places." Regarding the Inner Light, 
their oracle of duty, as the only and all-sufficient authority 
for proclaiming the truth, they rejected all forms, all rituals, 
and opposed all ordained ministry. " The letter killeth, but 
the spirit giveth life." They asked for no privileges for 
themselves which they were not willing to accord to others. 
They denounced religious persecution, and advocated perfect 
freedom of opinion and expression for all mankind, recog- 
nizing in all creeds some mixture of truth. By their con- 
stancy of purpose and unshaken resolution, they worked out 
for themselves and the world one of the grandest problems 
of civilization. 



Toward Quakers and Other Dissenters. 13 

At the age when Quakerism took its rise, public opinion 
was in a state of perpetual agitation. The nature of the 
Quaker doctrines and the cruel treatment which the sect re- 
ceived aroused in many an extravagance of speech and action 
hardly distinguishable from insanity. They had their " illumi- 
nations" — imagined that they were inspired with the spirit of 
prophecy — addressed warnings to ministers and magistrates. 
In England they were whipped, imprisoned, fined, branded, 
and treated with atrocious cruelty. But, far from shunning, 
they gloried in persecution. " The Quaker entered the con- 
test," says Macaulay, " with all the zeal of a reformer, the con- 
fidence of an enthusiast, and the cheerfulness of a voluntary 
martyr." The Quakers had heard of New England as a place 
where religious liberty was crucified, where " the servants of 
the Lord were forbidden to serve him ; " and single-handed, 
without organization and rejecting the use of carnal weapons, 
they resolved to brave the perils of the sea and attack the 
Puritan stronghold. That they were not wanted here did 
not hinder them in the least, but rather quickened their zeal, 
and threats were interpreted as invitations. 

In Massachusetts the fame of the Quakers had preceded 
them. The fathers had heard of them as wild and noisy 
fanatics, " drunk with zeal," 

" Mad scoffers of the priesthood, who mock at things divine." 

They had heard reports of their dismal prophesyings and 
revilings and their coarse and unfriendly behavior. Endicott 
and his followers remembered but too well the violence and 
tumult of the Antinomian controversy, and dreaded a repe- 
tition of such a strife. Their fevered fancy saw the " fabric 
of their institutions overthrown and their long and arduous 
work undone." They resolved to keep the Quakers out at 
all hazards. Their policy of "absolute intolerance sustained 
by capital punishment" had been successful in the cases of 
Williams, Gorton, the Antinomians, and other offenders, and 
they now proposed to try it on the Quakers. But little did 
they know the immutability of purpose and the invincible 



14 Policy of the Massachusetts Colonists 

determination of the Quaker character. The Quakers had 
resolved to break down Puritan intolerance in spite of every 
obstacle, and in spite of the most atrocious barbarities which 
might be inflicted upon them, and faithfully and thoroughly 
did they perform their task. That the conduct of the Friends 
was excessively aggravating, often giving provocation for the 
most radical measures, there can be little doubt. Even Roger 
Williams called them " insufferably proud and contemptuous." 
But the remedy chosen by the magistrates was worse than 
the disease itself. The sincerity of neither party is ques- 
tioned. Both were consistent from their respective stand- 
points. The Quakers were the aggressive party, but, under 
the law of England, and as English subjects, they claimed 
the right to come here. 

Ann Austin and Mary Fisher arrived at Boston early 
in 1656. Acting-Governor Bellingham ordered them to be 
seized, their persons searched for marks of witchcraft, and 
their papers burned by the common hangman. They were 
then shipped back to England. In October, 1656, eight 
more Quakers landed in Boston and, like the others, were 
promptly seized and thrown into jail. Thus these Quakers 
were punished, not for what they had done, but for what 
the magistrate imagined they might do. Furthermore, at 
this time there was no law against Quakers, and the colonists, 
aware of the weakness of their position, passed laws to meet 
the case. This was practically before a Quaker had appeared 
in New England, or had any opportunity to commit " law- 
lessness." 

Quakers coming into Massachusetts were to " be forth- 
with committed to the house of correction, and at their 
entrance to be severely whipped, and by the master thereof 
to be kept constantly at work, and none suffered to converse 
or speak with them during their imprisonment." Masters 
of vessels were subject to a fine of ^100 for bringing a 
Quaker into any part of the jurisdiction, and required to 
give security to take him away again. In the following 
year the severity of the laws was increased. A fine of forty 



Tozuard Quakers and Other Dissenters. 1 5 

shillings for every hour was imposed for harboring Quakers, 
and the forfeiture for bringing them in was enforced by a 
more rigid rule. It was furthermore ordered that every 
Quaker coming into the jurisdiction, after having been once 
banished, should, " for the first offence, suffer the loss of one 
ear ; for the second offence the loss of the other ; and for a 
third offence should have his tongue bored through with 
a hot iron." In October, 1658, the penalty of death was 
decreed against all Quakers who should return after they 
had been banished. Let us do the fathers the justice to 
say that the death penalty was passed by a bare majority and 
after much opposition. 

The federal commissioners soon wrote to the General 
Court of Rhode Island, remonstrating against the leniency of 
its policy toward these " cursed heretics." Here they were 
enjoying such a refuge as the early Puritans themselves had 
found in Holland. The reply of Governor Arnold contained 
a significant and valuable suggestion, which the magistrates 
of Massachusetts Bay had done well to adopt. It had been 
his experience that where the Quakers are " suffered to de- 
clare themselves freely, there they least desire to come ; and 
that they are likely to gain more followers by the conceit 
of their patient sufferings than by consent to their pernicious 
sayings." 

But brandings, whippings, and croppings of ears had but 
little effect in keeping out the Quakers. Especially did 
they swarm to Massachusetts, as the hot-bed of bigotry, and, 
therefore, in the greatest need of their remonstrances and 
preachings. The cruelties inflicted upon them would seem 
incredible if not too well authenticated. Nicholas Upsall, a 
venerable and highly-respected citizen, for showing some 
compassion to Quakers in prison, was himself thrown into 
the same prison, fined and banished, and suffered incredible 
hardships for his humanity. Sarah Gibbens and Dorothy 
Waugh were imprisoned three days without food, then 
" whipped with a threefold knotted whip, tearing the flesh," 
and afterward banished. In September, 1658, Holden, Cope- 



1 6 Policy of the Massachusetts Colonists 

land, and Rouse, who had twice come back after banishment, 
each had the right ear cut off by the constable. The law 
compelling all persons to attend meeting under a penalty of 
five shillings, was rigidly enforced, and caused great distress 
among the Quakers. The fines often accumulated to a large 
amount against the same person, and many were thrown into 
jail, and their cows, sheep, and other substance taken from 
them, and their families reduced to utter destitution. A law 
had also been passed requiring all persons to take the oath 
of fidelity to the country. As Quakers could not take an 
oath, they could not be protected in person or estate by the 
laws, and were the helpless prey of every designing rogue 
and swindler. The case of the Quaker then seemed to stand 
something like this : If he stayed away from the Puritan 
" steeple-house," he would be fined ; if he went there, and 
the spirit moved him to utter a protest, he would be fined 
again ; if he chose to attend his own meeting, he would 
inevitably be fined. If, driven to a perfect frenzy of fanati- 
cism by his sufferings, he should revile his persecutors, fine 
and imprisonment were his certain fate, supplemented, 
perhaps, by the branding-iron and whipping-post. If unable 
to pay his fines, his property would be confiscated, and he 
himself liable to be sold into slavery. Truly a disheartening 
prospect for the outlawed Quaker. The number of Friends 
who were fined, imprisoned, or scourged, by order of the 
General Court, was about thirty. The number punished in 
a like manner by sentence of the county courts is not ascer- 
tained. 

In 1659 Puritan persecution reached its climax by the 
judicial murder of four persons; but it was done amid much 
murmuring and public protest. In the summer of that year, 
Mary Dyer, William Robinson, and Marmaduke Stevenson, 
three exiled Quakers, returned to Boston. They were tried, 
condemned, and in the following October, the two men were 
hanged on Boston Common ; but Mary Dyer's sentence, at 
the intercession of her son, was commuted to banishment. 
She soon came back, however, and on the 1st of the follow- 



Toward Quakers and Other Dissenters. 1 7 

ing June was again led to the gallows. Being offered her 
life on condition that she would go away and stay away, she 
replied : " Nay, I cannot ; for in obedience to the will of the 
Lord I. came, and in his will I will abide faithful to the 
death." The brand of that day's infamy will never disappear 
from the annals of the Puritan founders. In all these bar- 
barities the clergy heartily concurred. In pronouncing sen- 
tence of death upon the Quakers, in defiance of the law of 
England and the patent from which all his authority was 
derived, Governor Endicott exceeded his authority and 
plunged into the double guilt of treason and murder. It 
would, indeed, seem as if the magistrates 

"Bereft of light, their seeing had forgot." 

They might have perceived that, while they proceeded from 
one seventy to another, the evil they were seeking to crush 
augmented rather than diminished. For every Quaker 
hanged, five were ready to take his place. The next victim 
was William Leddra. ■ He was offered his life on the con- 
dition of going to England and not returning, to which he 
replied : " I have no business there ; I stand not in my own 
will, but in the will of the Lord; to make you the promise, 
I cannot." On the following day, March 14, 1661, his name 
was added to the list of martyrs. While Leddra's trial was 
still in progress, Wenlock Christison appeared before the 
court. There was something sublime in his courage. At his 
trial he demanded to know if the court was bound by the 
law of England, and, on receiving an affirmative reply, 
declared that there was no English law for hanging Quakers, 
and appealed to England for protection. Governor Endicott 
treated his demand with derision. Not without reason did 
poor Christison exclaim against such " monstrous illegality," 
that the " Magna Charta was trodden down, and the guar- 
antees of the colonial charter utterly disregarded." But his 
cruel sentence was destined never to be executed. In the 
meantime the General Court had met, and public opposition 
to the rigorous policy of the magistrates had made itself 



1 8 Policy of the Massachusetts Colonists 

heard in indignant threats and protests. The contest of will 
was over. The spirit of humanity had uttered itself in 
overpowering tones, and the softening sway of gentle pa- 
tience, under suffering, had, at length, melted the ice of 
Puritan austerity. 

The zealous defenders of the Puritans hasten to affirm that 
the barbarity of the law was justified on the ground that 
Quaker doctrines seemed subversive to all established order. 
But the same argument is equally applicable to the case of the 
Moors in Spain and the Huguenots in France. " The fears 
of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of an- 
other." And the Puritan founders, by ignoring the fact that 
it was the conscience of the Quakers which moved them to 
question the righteousness of the law, and by charging it 
solely to their obduracy, claim, in effect, that there could be 
no conscientiousness except within their own hearts. The 
statement of Dr. Ellis is probably literally true, that " at any 
stage of the proceedings against them (the Quakers), even 
when on the gallows, each and all of them were at perfect 
liberty to go off unharmed." But the Quaker knew this 
would be a weak and fatal concession. Holding duty para- 
mount, he could die, but would not deny the truth nor surren- 
der his sacred mission. He had resolved to break down 
Puritan intolerance, even though it cost him his life. He 
conquered, and left to posterity the invaluable legacy of 
religious freedom. 

Upon the question of the historical accuracy of the " King's 
missive," over which there has been some recent discussion 
between the Quaker poet and Dr. George E. Ellis, through the 
medium of the Boston Advertiser, it is not now necessary to 
dwell at any length. Suffice it to say that Mr. Whittier's 
information upon the effect of the royal mandamus seems to 
have been well founded and derived from authentic sources. 
True, some of the inhuman laws suspended on receipt of the 
King's instruction were revived in October, 1662. But even 
these were reenacted with some modifications, while the death 



Toward Quakers and Other Dissenters. ig 

penalty for Quakers never again disgraced the statute-books 
of Massachusetts Bay. 

For a little while after the discontinuance of capital pun- 
ishment, the antics of the sufferers grew more absurd and 
annoying than before. Railings, prophesyings and disturb- 
ances became more numerous than ever. Lydia Ward well at 
Newbury, and Deborah Wilson at Salem, were constrained to 
appear naked " as a sign." Mary Brewster entered the Old 
South Church in a gown of sackcloth, with her face smeared 
with lamp-black. But as the severity of the persecution 
relaxed, so the fanaticism of the Quakers declined ; their 
absurdities became less frequent, and were soon heard of no 
more. As the colony grew stronger, the magistrates became 
more confident in their own power and security, better recon- 
ciled to the existence of dissent, and more willing to relax 
those severities which in their early weakness they had 
deemed essential. 

It is commonly asserted that Quaker persecution owed its 
origin, not to the settled purpose of the founders to permit no 
difference of opinion among them on religious subjects, but 
to the effrontery and indecency of the persecuted. But it is 
most evident that Quaker excesses were engendered by Puri- 
tan persecution. Quaker men were stripped of all their 
property, starved in Puritan jails, tortured and mutilated; 
Quaker women dragged through jeering crowds, stripped for 
the lash, until, driven to a perfect frenzy by their inhuman 
treatment, they were goaded on to acts of defiance and 
indelicacy. 

The incivility and abusive language of the Quakers are 
often urged as an excuse for the treatment which they re- 
ceived. They believed that they were doing God's work, and 
naturally denounced their persecutors, and in language not 
remarkable for its charity or delicacy. Ministers were stig- 
matized as " Baal's priests," " the seed of the serpent," " the 
brood of Ishmael," " painted sepulchres," etc. But, in extrav- 
agance of language, the Puritans often rivaled their victims. 
Cotton Mather writes : " In Quakerism, the sink of all here- 



20 Policy of the Massaclmsetts Colonists 

sies, we see the vomit cast out in the by-past ages by whole 
kennels of seducers licked up again for a new digestion." In 
the matter of offensive epithets, the two parties were pretty 
evenly matched. The language of controversy of that age 
was not notable for urbanity or decorum. 

But what the Puritan clergy, who were the instigators of 
the laws, most violently opposed was the theology of the 
Quakers. This was the primary cause of the persecution, and 
this the Puritan ministers never for a moment faltered in their 
determination to root out. The Friends were sometimes 
punished for abusiveness of language, but the records show 
that they more frequently suffered for refusing to attend 
the established church, for attending Quaker meetings, for 
returning after banishment, or for refusing to take oath. 
After the persecutions for religion were over, we may search 
the records in vain for a single instance of imprisonment or 
arrest. The laws inspired by dread of Quaker heresies speak 
of "blasphemous opinions," "cursed heretics," their "denial 
of all established forms of worship," and " their withdrawal 
from church assemblies." 

Much as we condemn the fathers in their treatment of the 
early Friends, we must not fail to bear in mind the fact that, 
while a very large minority was constantly opposed to these 
cruelties, a reaction ended them. Even Cotton Mather, writ- 
ing in 1695, says : " I will not, cannot, make myself a vindi- 
cator of all the severities with which the zeal of some eminent 
men hath sometimes enraged and increased, rather than 
reclaimed, these miserable heretics." It was an age hard, 
coarse, and intolerant. Persecution was practiced by every 
dominant sect in Christendom. It is hard for men with the 
power in their own hands to respect the rights of others. The 
Puritans, with all their pure and lofty principles, were very 
fallible in their judgments, and we cannot expect them to rise 
far above the prejudices of their age. We must rather 
"walk backward and throw over their memories the mantle of 
charity and excuse, saying reverently, ' Remember the temp- 
tation and the age.' " The verdict of impartial history, view- 



Toward Quakers and Other Dissenters. 2 1 

ing their piety, patriotism, and moral worth, their incredible 
sacrifices, and the almost unparalleled difficulties with which 
they had to contend, must pronounce the New England Puri- 
tans, despite all their faults and weaknesses, the most remark- 
able body of men the world has ever seen. The Quakers live 
in the works that follow them : in a civilization better, because 
purified by the searching fire of persecution ; in a higher 
plane of mercy, justice, and equality ; in the " religious free- 
dom which is now our life." 

" The Puritan spirit perishing not, 

To Concord's yeomen the signal sent 
And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot 

That severed the chains of a continent. 
With its gentler mission of peace and good-will 
The thought of the Quaker is living still, 
And the freedom of soul he prophesied 
Is gospel and law where the martyrs died." 



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